The pragmatics of the modern Greek grammatical system

Abstract

This thesis is primarily concerned with the Pragmatics of the Modern Greek
(MG) grammatical system. A secondary aim is the investigation of the
relationship between morpho-syntax, phonology and pragmatics’ related features
which form part of the grammar, in allowing a speaker’s intention to be
formulated into a linguistic expression. The term grammatical mood is used in
this work as the category which includes ‘all grammatical elements operating on
a situation/proposition, that are not directly concerned with situating an event in
the actual world, as conceived by the speaker’ (Hengeveld 2004). Moreover, the
analysis undertaken follows the framework provided by Hengeveld et al. (2007)
of a systematic hierarchical classification of propositional and behavioural basic
illocutions.
Recent research has provided an extensive analysis of the syntax and semantics
of the MG verb moods; this thesis focuses on the way illocution is codified in a
speaker’s message, through the morphosyntactic and phonological choices the
speaker has made. Based on morphosyntactic criteria, five MG grammatical
moods are formally distinguished, namely the Indicative, the Subjunctive, the
Imperative, the Prohibitive and the Hortative. Furthermore, the five prosodic
contours available to a speaker when forming a linguistic expression are
identified, which contribute to the specification of particular uses.
The main contribution of this thesis is a systematic representation of the basic
illocutions of MG based on markers that have an illocutionary impact, such as
the Verb Mood, the Negation, the Clitic Placement, the Intonation Patterns and
any Additional Segmental Strategies used by MG speakers. In addition to
Theoretical Linguistics and Pragmatics, the findings could benefit several other
disciplines, including natural language acquisition, first and second language
teaching as well as natural language interfaces, human-machine interaction,
speech processing systems, and on-line language learning systems.